The End Of an Era
by ArkT
Summary: One-Shot. The events that led to the "Batman Of Tomorrow  Beyond " Continuation. In which the "Good Guy" Doesn't always win and the Joker will always have the last laugh. R&R. Rated T for character deaths.


A/N: This was mostly done on a whim; Those who've seen the Batman Of Tomorrow (AKA Batman Beyond) Movie: Return Of The Joker should easily recognize this. So at any rate, Enjoy!

Almost a month passes with no signs, they went through everyone in the chain, and the only lead comes with an invite to a certain rooftop. One of his worst fears made manifest is seeing the jack-in-box, the jack wears Tim's costume, the head piece pops apart along a pin from the grenade. He and Barbara hastily fall back though it turns out the jack is a joke, the real clue is the straitjacket, it meant Arkham is where Joker took Tim. They return to the Batmobile and he floors it for Arkham. He drove almost in silence and Barbara opposite him kept mumbling "we'll get him back... they'll pay for whatever they did to him..."

He smashes through the gates throwing them clear off their aging hinges, it begins to rain heavily, and like with the gates, Batman sharply kicks the front doors. A newer facility is already underway for occupancy and operation upstate so it left this one to mothballs, which made it ideal for Joker had he thought of this in the first place, they might have gotten to him sooner. No time for hindsight and so they move in further. It is as quiet as a tomb until they hear Harley humming and it is sickening to hear a usually innocuous nursery rhyme being sung by her of all people. He continues by the ground level into the operating theater and Batgirl heads up the curving stairway that will place her in the balcony overlooking the OT.

He slams open the doors to the OT and is met by Harley at a table set for dinner.

"Puddin' we got visitors!"

"Ah, Bats welcome to our humble abode!"

He seizes the Joker by the very threads of the Clown's typical purple suit jacket.

"Where is Robin?"

"Robin? There's no Robin here... oh, you must mean J.J."

He shoves Joker and advances towards the dark blue curtains that Joker and Harley had been looking towards.

She fires the bazooka, which unloads an instantly binding red ribbon fabric around him as he falls to the floor.

"You see we have been doing this merry little dance forever now... and we both aren't getting any younger... so Harl and I decided to add a Joker Junior to our merry company..."

"Rather then go through the joys of childbirth... we decided to adopt..."

"Then I remembered you always have a spare kid around somewhere..."

The curtains part revealing Tim in Joker-esque costume and worse he looks like Joker at least cosmetically. Tim or rather J.J. as Harley calls him now steps down after getting the release from the vertical operating table. The Joker like laugh from that mouth is all it takes for him to burst out of the binds then Joker gestures at him, he throws the retractable blade, which embeds itself in the wall after tearing through the curtain. Joker hops onto the table after resetting it to horizontal then speeds away on it with Batman in pursuit on foot.

Harley looks on in amusement and glee until noticing what J.J. is staring at an enraged Batgirl descending on her. Batman... Bruce... knows Batgirl... Barbara will give Harley hell for this. Joker uses the bed like a fulcrum to get himself over the fake wall that Batman just smashes through and then heads up the stairs on Joker's tail. Once up there a projector flickers on and then he is given the full dose of what happen to Tim in the past three weeks, the psychopath had been filming the whole thing.

He hears the Joker's words yet his attention is drawn too heavily on what he is seeing on the screen.

"... I peeled back the layers..."

His demeanor hidden from the Joker's sight lines does not mean the psychopath does not know what is likely to be on his face.

'... serums and shocks..."

The slits tilt upward ever so slowly and his lips twitch into a sign of vengeance.

"... shared such secrets... "

He is slow to turnabout.

"... anticlimactic... like a kid who peeks at holiday presents... just a boy crying for mommy and daddy... I'd laugh if it weren't so pathetic..."

He finishes the turn then lunges through the air.

"... What the heck... I'll laugh anyway..."

As the Joker laughs yet for once the laugh seems to have no effect on him except to make him angrier perhaps. His gloved fists connect and Joker stumbles around tripping over the projector.

"... if you didn't like that... I have got slides... heheh."

He throws him over the balcony and the clown bounces somewhat on the way down then he leaps over after him. The Joker's defiance remains on the clown's face even with blood streaming from his mouth.

"I'll rip you in two..."

Many profess fear of the Bat glare, but few ever live to spread the word about the other glare, the Joker's glare.

"If you had the guts for that kind of fun... you would have done it years ago... I on the other hand..."

He stabs Batman first in the arm gripping his neck then after the grip is broken by the stab, he jabs Batman in the leg, and he falls over towards the floor. Joker hops down and begins to taunt his worn down nemesis more.

"It is over... the boy is mine... and the last sound you'll hear is our laughter..."

He tosses the flag gun to J.J. and then holds Batman by the cowl before.

"... make Daddy proud."

The flag pops out, the hands tremble, the aim is unsteady, and Joker orders again. The laugh is audible and Batman looks straight at his would be killer of a son.

"Tim..."

J.J's/Tim's hands shake more... then there is a bang and the flag lodges itself in Joker's chest as the clown goes flying backwards. As he lands a far back crate, the clown got his literal exit punch line except all he can say is...

"That's not funny... that's not..."

Barbara comes back inside dripping wet from the rain and it seems likely to Batman that her fight with Harley did not end well for Harley either if the fact that she is carrying torn fabric from the wrist band of Harley's Harlequin costume is any indication. Tim collapses to the floor in tears and Barbara kneels next to him then takes him into her arms telling to cry it out. Batman... Bruce struggles to his feet and knows that their triumph is pyrrhic for them as what happen here tonight left unseen wounds and among the worst is made in Tim. It made him feel many things including the perverse notion that Joker really did have the last 'laugh'.

~END~

R&R if you would.


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